Here in Ohio, Id say May was well below average. June had a few good openings but was also below average.

The last week of June, however, and 1st week of July were average or above average. This particular week corresponds to the long term peak in terms of # of openings. So we are now on the downslope. Let's hope for a strong finish

I suppose I should go back to my logs and do a statistical analyis, but I would say offhand that this has probably been my poorest summer on 6M going back to 2006. Double-hop to the east coast from northern California has been well below what I've seen in earlier years. The June contest didn't produce any double-hop openings here near San Francisco.

I started the year at 388 grids confirmed and thought it would be easy to reach 400. To date, I still have four more to go and I'm not sure I'll get there.

The sun has been quite active and that seems to have roiled the e-layer. Although the guys in high latitudes have been having fun with the auroras, DXMaps has shown the band to be dead then farther south.

Anyway, there's still another month left in the season. Let's hope for a few big openings to salvage it for us.

3 or 4 japan on a nice opening the 4th, about the same kl7's a week prior then one ve2, ve9, and back in may one tep opening to argentina and chile and only 1 good FM opening. Usually I have twenty times these contacts, so this is the worst that I have experienced in 27 years.

I watch the spots and often see many going overhead from East Coast to Midwest, or to the Southeast. Been seeing many openings from CA to WA/BC here of late. Earlier in the year the guys along the Gulf Coast seemed to have a picnic working into the Carrib, Central America and South America.

Got lucky a month ago and saw a spot from LU at around 7pm local EDST. I tuned to the frequency and heard an accent saying QRZ. And worked him TE on the 2nd call, with 100w to 5 elements at 15 ft. Also worked CT a week ago at around 8 am. And lately there has been a pipeline into VE1 and VE2 land plus New England at around 8-10pm.

I saw spots for JA but never heard one. DItto KL7. Not many Carribs or other DX to the South and minimal Europe have made it into central Ohio this year..

I put up a 2 element Yagi at 15 feet last winter-I found out that I shouldn't have bothered--it is NEVER any better for double hop E skip than my 40M dipole at 40 feet. The only DX I worked on it was a YV5. With the 40M dipole I've worked DM69, DM41, CM97, EA8, 9Y4, VP2V, and FG5--I'm up to 12 countries on 6M.

Been pretty good so far in July, thank heavens. About 100 qsos this month from CT1, many VE's, out to VE7 and a few down the Pacific Coast ( though not many. ) Many 1-2-4-5-0 stations worked AZ-NM-CO-ND=SD-TX and closer have been loud, with sigs 59+, up to 30 over.

The 2 el yagi problem noted on here is a surprise. Many nice 3 el signals have been received here. And prior to last summer, my 5 el yagi was at 5 ft and worked most states, 10 EUs and about 20 Carrib and SA stations. It's been at 15 ft for the past summer and a alf.

The club station WW8OH will be in the CQWW VHF Test this weekend hoping for some decent Es to make up for the terrible ARRL VHF Contest weekend conditions. 100w to an M2 5 el agi at 51 ft + 100w to an 11 el yagi at 56 ft from central Ohio. Hope to hear some of you on.

Copyright 2000-2016 eHam.net, LLC
eHam.net is a community web site for amateur (ham) radio operators around the world.
Contact the site with comments or questions.
WEBMASTER@EHAM.NETSite Privacy Statement